The Annapurna Circuit is one of those treks that appear on every walker's dream list. It loops all the way around the Annapurna massif, in the heart of the Nepalese Himalaya, and in around ten to twelve days of walking it offers one of the most complete and varied mountain journeys on the planet: you start among subtropical rice paddies and forests, climb through valleys of Gurung and Thakali villages and Buddhist monasteries, cross the great Thorong La pass at 5.416 metres —the high point— and descend into the high-altitude desert of the northern side, with its Tibetan landscape, down to the Kali Gandaki valley.
Its great appeal is that diversity: few treks in the world pass through so many climates, landscapes and cultures in a single route. From humid jungle to snow and desert; from Hindu temples to Buddhist gompas; from rice to the apple orchards of Marpha. And all of it surrounded by an amphitheatre of giants over seven and eight thousand metres: Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, Machapuchare. Crossing the Thorong La before dawn, with the cold, the altitude and the excitement, is one of the great experiences Nepal has to offer.
This guide explains the essentials for planning it sensibly: how many days you need, when to go, which permits are required (and why a guide is now mandatory), how crucial acclimatisation is for avoiding altitude sickness, how the new roads have changed the trek and what to expect from the teahouses. The Annapurna Circuit is demanding but within reach of any fit, well-prepared walker; it isn't a technical climb, but a long walk at altitude. And for many, it's the trip of a lifetime.
The Annapurna massif entered mountaineering history in 1950, when a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog summited Annapurna I (8.091 m): it was the first eight-thousander ever climbed, three years before Everest. Trekking the circuit around the massif became popular from the 1970s, when Nepal opened up to tourism and Pokhara became the base for Himalayan adventure. In 1986 the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACAP), the country's largest protected area, was created to manage tourism and protect the environment and the Gurung, Magar and Thakali communities who live there. In recent decades, dirt roads reaching much of the route have transformed the trek, shortening it and motorising some sections, although the crossing of the Thorong La and the high-mountain traverse remain intact. The history of these mountains, their peoples and the great trek is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Nepal of lakes and high mountains: Pokhara at the foot of the Annapurnas, the Kali Gandaki gorge and, to the north, the old Buddhist kingdom of Lo in Mustang.
Read the history of Annapurna region and Pokhara (lakes and trekking) →They depart from Pokhara, 65 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The modern history of Annapurna begins with one of the great feats of mountaineering. In the spring of 1950, a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog, with Louis Lachenal, Lionel Terray and Gaston Rébuffat among its members, reached the summit of Annapurna I, at 8.091 metres. It was the first mountain over eight thousand metres ever climbed, three years before Everest. And they did it almost blind: the maps of the region were so poor that much of the expedition was spent simply finding the mountain and a way to reach it.
The triumph came at a terrible price. On the descent, Herzog and Lachenal suffered horrific frostbite from the cold and the altitude; Herzog lost almost all his fingers and toes. His account of the climb, the book 'Annapurna, primer 8.000' (published in English as 'Annapurna'), became one of the most widely read mountain books ever and carried Annapurna's name around the world. The mountain also earned a grim reputation: Annapurna I is, proportionally, one of the most dangerous eight-thousanders, with one of the highest death rates among climbers.
That expedition put the Annapurna massif on the map of world mountaineering and, with it, the whole region the circuit crosses today. The mountains the French could barely locate in 1950 would, a few decades later, become one of the most famous trekking destinations on the planet. But the Annapurna that trekkers walk is not the one of impossible summits; it is the one of the valleys, passes and villages that surround those giants.
Long before anything like a 'trek' existed, the trails walkers follow today were living trade routes, used by caravans for centuries. The most important followed the valley of the Kali Gandaki river, which cuts through the Himalaya between the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs, forming one of the deepest gorges in the world. That natural corridor was one of the few workable passages through the great range, and a busy trade flowed along it between the plains of India and the Tibetan plateau.
The star product was salt. Salt and wool came down from Tibet; grain, rice, spices and manufactured goods went up from India. Loaded onto yaks, mules and goats, the caravans travelled the valley in long daily stages, stopping in villages that are now stages of the circuit. This trade made the Thakali rich and famous: the people of the upper Kali Gandaki (around Marpha, Tukche and Jomsom) controlled the traffic, ran inns and developed a refined merchant culture, with its celebrated cuisine.
That caravan past explains many of the villages along the route: Kagbeni, with its medieval feel; Marpha, with its white houses and apple orchards; the monasteries and the walls of stones carved with mantras. When you walk the Kali Gandaki valley, battered by the afternoon wind, you are really following one of the great trade routes of the Himalaya, a road that has connected worlds for centuries. Trekking didn't invent these trails: it inherited them.
The Annapurna Circuit is as famous for its people as for its mountains. The route crosses the lands of several peoples of Nepal's central mountains, each with its own language, religion and way of life, and that human diversity is one of the keys to the experience. On the lower, milder slopes of the southern side live mainly the Gurung and the Magar, terrace farmers and herders of Tibeto-Burman roots who blend Hinduism, Buddhism and shamanic beliefs. Many of the legendary Gurkha soldiers came from their villages.
As you climb north towards Manang, the human landscape changes along with the natural one. The upper valley is home to the Manangi (or Manangba), a people of Tibetan, Buddhist culture, traditionally traders and travellers, whose stone villages, monasteries and chortens give the northern side its unmistakable semi-Tibetan feel. Further west, in the Kali Gandaki valley, are the Thakali, and to the north lies Mustang, the old Buddhist kingdom of Tibetan culture.
In just a few days of walking, the circuit thus crosses a mosaic of cultures that reflects Nepal's enormous diversity: from the Hinduism of the lowlands to the Tibetan Buddhism of the heights, with every blend in between. Temples and gompas, festivals, food, architecture and even crops change from stage to stage. For trekkers, sleeping in the teahouses of these villages and getting to know their people —hospitable, hardened by the tough mountain life— is as memorable as the peaks themselves.
Trekking the circuit around Annapurna took off in the 1970s, when Nepal fully opened up to international tourism and Pokhara became established as the base for Himalayan adventure. The trails of the old trade routes, the village teahouses and the chance to walk all the way around a massif of eight-thousanders drew a growing number of walkers from all over the world, and the Annapurna Circuit soon earned a reputation as one of the best treks on the planet for its variety of landscapes and cultures.
That success also brought problems: deforestation from the demand for firewood, rubbish, and pressure on resources and on local communities. To tackle all this, the Annapurna Conservation Area (Annapurna Conservation Area Project, ACAP) was created in 1986, managed by a Nepali foundation. Unlike a classic national park, ACAP brought local communities into conservation: part of the revenue from trekkers' permits is reinvested in the villages (schools, health, energy, waste management) and in protecting the environment. It became a pioneering model of tourism and conservation, and today it is the largest protected area in Nepal.
So the ACAP permit every trekker must get is not just paperwork: it is the tool the region uses to balance tourism with protecting nature and the well-being of the people who live there. Together with the rules on guides and permits, it is part of the effort to keep the great trek possible without destroying what makes it unique.
The Annapurna Circuit also has darker chapters that remind us how serious the high mountains are. The most tragic came in October 2014, when an unexpected snowstorm, caused by the remnants of a cyclone, hit the Thorong La pass area at the height of the trekking season. Dozens of people, trekkers as well as Nepali guides and porters, died, caught by the blizzard and avalanches or by hypothermia and altitude sickness. It was the worst trekking disaster in Nepal's history, and it led to better weather warning systems and pass management. It is a reminder that Thorong La, however busy it may be, is a pass of over 5.400 metres that should never be crossed in bad weather.
The other big change of recent decades has been, paradoxically, development: dirt roads now reach much of the circuit. Today vehicles drive up the valley as far as Chame or Manang on the east side, and as far as Muktinath and Jomsom on the west, and this has transformed the trek. On the one hand, it has taken some of the charm and solitude out of certain lower sections, once purely on foot and now travelled by jeeps; on the other, it has shortened the circuit and opened it up to more people, who use transport to skip the motorised stages and focus on the high section and the pass.
Despite all this, the heart of the circuit —the crossing of Thorong La, the traverse between Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, the mountain villages, the variety of landscapes and cultures— remains intact and still deserves its fame. The recent requirement to go with a registered guide aims to improve safety and spread the benefits of tourism more fairly. The 21st-century Annapurna Circuit is different from the one of the 1970s, more regulated and with roads, but it is still what it always was: one of the world's great walking journeys, an unforgettable trip around one of the most impressive massifs in the Himalaya.
